American League Winners & Losers Week 16

ubaldo jimenez american league loser mlb 2015 images

ubaldo jimenez american league loser mlb 2015 imagesThe calendar month of July is cruising along as teams around the American League look to position themselves as buyers before the upcoming trade deadline. That being said the top three teams around the American League continue to be the New York Yankees, Kansas City Royals and the Los Angeles Angels.

While each of those three teams are deserving a spot on our American League Winners list we elected to skip past them and look at other teams as well as players who should be on the list. One team that has been hot of late has been the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox are 6-4 over their last ten overall games while winning their last five ball games.

The hot stretch of ball has them at 47-50 sitting just one game behind the Detroit Tigers for third place in the American League Central. For the White Sox a few players deserve a spot on the Winners list as the team’s starting pitching has allowed one or fewer runs in three of those five wins during their winning streak.

Two players that stand out are outfielders Adam Eaton and Melky Cabrera. Eaton is hitting .346 over his last seven games with one home run to go with three runs driven in. Cabrera on the other hand has picked up two home runs while batting .414 over his last seven games with 11 runs batted in.

Here are the rest of the winners and losers around the American League to open up the second half of the 2015 Major League Baseball season. Check back next week as we will have a complete list of winners and losers at the MLB trade deadline.

Winners:

Rougned Odor, Texas Rangers: The Texas Rangers infielder has been somewhat hot of late picking up 10 hits over his last seven games including three doubles, one triple and three home runs to go with eight runs batted in. Odor is now hitting .265 on the season with eight home runs and 34 runs batted in.

Toronto Blue Jays: While the Blue Jays still sit behind the Yankees in the standing the team does land on our winners list after trading for Troy Tulowitzki. Tulowitzki will give the Blue Jays another big bat in the middle of the lineup for a playoff push down the stretch.

Scott Kazmir, Houston Astros: The Houston native didn’t disappoint in his first start for the Astros after the team was able to acquire him from the Oakland A’s. The 10 year veteran threw seven scoreless innings allowing just three hits while striking out three. The outing improved his record to 6-5 on the season while lowering his earned run average to 2.24 in 19 starts.

Andrew Heaney, Los Angeles Angels: Could the Angels recent success to the top of the American League West have something to do with this 24 year old starter? Since his call up back on June 24th, the Angels have won all six starts he has pitched while Heaney has posted a 5-0 record. Last week, Heaney made two starts going 13 innings allowing just four earned runs while striking out eight to improve his record to 5-0 on the season

Andrew Miller, New York Yankees: Much of the Yankees success this season can be contributed to the back of the bullpen. Part of that success has been Miller who has yet to blow a save this season in 34 appearances. Last week, Miller picked up three saves including two against the first place Baltimore Orioles.

Losers:

Toronto Blue Jays: Yea we have the Blue Jays on both our winners list and losers list this week. While we love the trade for Tulowitzki losing Jose Reyes will limit the Blue Jays atop the lineup. The main reason for landing on this list is the team needs pitching as they have outscored opponents by 95 runs this season.

Stephen Vogt, Oakland A’s: While the A’s have struggled all season, Vogt posted a big first half. His struggles continued this past week in series against the Toronto Blue Jays and San Francisco Giants. Vogt picked up just three hits in the two series in 22 at bats helping his batting average drop to .274 on the season.

Cleveland Indians: The struggles and disappointment continues in Cleveland is just 3-7 over their last ten games including losing five straight contests. Overall the team has lost six of their last seven games while scoring just 10 runs in those six games. The losing could continue for the Indians over the next few days as they still have two games remaining in their current series against the Kansas City Royals.

Ubaldo Jimenez, Baltimore Orioles: The Baltimore Orioles starter looked brilliant in the first half of 2015. That can’t be said of his second half start as he allowed 14 earned runs in two starts failing to reach the fifth inning in either start. His latest struggles came last week against the New York Yankees as he allowed seven earned runs over just 2.1 innings.

Adam LaRoche, Chicago White Sox: The White Sox have been red hot but that can’t be said for their first baseman Adam LaRoche. LaRoche is hitting just .212 on the season but picked up just three hits over his last 25 at bats. In that stretch LaRoche has failed to pick up a single extra base hit while only picking up just one run batted in but has picked up 14 strikeouts.